• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

digiscop (1 Viewer)

Three questions:
What budget are you thinking of?
Do you already have a camera that you want to use?
Do you already have a tripod for the scope?
 
Well, that should be quite enough for a good setup.
There are number of good scopes available for $300 or less, from reputable suppliers such as Celestron. You can of course spend more, but above $200 it is mostly better mechanicals and quality control. If you can pick out a good specimen at a supply shop, you can save serious dollars. Do note that the eye piece is really the heart of a scope and that if you can buy a model that accepts standard 1 1/4 inch astronomy eyepieces, you can improve your scope much more easily and cheaply than when dependent on the scope manufacturer. The BF scope thread will give you lots of extra input and suggestions.

Spend more than $200 on your tripod and tripod head. The scope is useless unless it has a solid and stable support, so accept that the setup will be heavier than ideal. Make sure it is tall enough for you to be comfortable using it. Also, note that heads come in vast variety, the type you want has a single lever for adjusting angle and direction of the scope. Photographers prefer dual levers, so they can swing the camera in one plane while leaving it fixed in the other, but that is a pain to manage with a scope imho. Again, check the BF scope thread for lots of good input.

Lastly, do not disregard used gear, often sold on Astromart or Cloudy Nights as well as on Ebay. Scopes are pretty durable unless abused, as are tripods, so there are values to be had. You may find that as you get into this, your focus becomes very specific, so it may make sense to underinvest initially and have resources to deploy once your path is clearer.

It is a great hobby, have fun!
 
Warning! This thread is more than 11 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top